HoldenV8
Years ago

NBL Attendance - Round 8

Here we are, the 10:30pm replay of NBL attendances for Round 8. Sorry for the inconvenience but I'm reliably informed the replay will now be shown at 1am.

Breakers v Crocs - 4,571 @ VE (38%)
Tigers v Kings - 3,189 @ SNC (91%)
36ers v Blaze - 4,708 @ AA (59%)
Wildcats v Kings - 4,000 (approx) @ CS (89%)

You'd normally look at a game that only fills 38% of the venue as a failure but 4,571 isn't bad IMO. Not when you remember that with that size crowd the Breakers regular NSEC would have been over filled at 111% capacity.

Good to see the Tigers are still pulling over 3,000 to games at home now that Patty Mills is gone. Still, with the Tigers in the form they have been and also having the smallest NBL venue you'd think they'd be able to get 3,500 to home games. Although from what I continually read it might have more to do with where the SNC is located rather than any lack of genuine fan support for the Tigers.

Considering we won last time out at home AND they were presenting the 1986 Championship team to the crowd (with a minimal amount of effort put into that by the 36ers IMO) I was surprised we didn't get a crowd of at least 5K on Saturday night. The upper section was almost a ghost town compared to the bowl. Still, we once again saw the biggest crowd of the round here in Adelaide and 4,708 is nothing to sneeze at. Some teams don't get close to that when they win and we're losing.....

Once again another good home crowd for the Wildcats. Kinda surprising that the league leaders aren't selling out their 4,500 seat venue right now but they still haven't fallen below 4,000 for the year. But it makes me wonder the wisdom of the Wildcats planned move to the new Perth Arena when its scheduled to open in 2014. If they can't sellout Challenge Stadium then how are they going to fare in a 14,000 seat arena once the novelty of the new place wears off? (though people said that about the Powerhouse when it opened in 1992 and it took what, 10 or so years before crowds started dropping off capacity?)

So there you have it. Four NBL games in 3 days attracting 16,468 at an average of 4117 per game.

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HoldenV8
Years ago

And just FYI, in order of average home attendance until Round 8:

Adelaide - 5 games, 26,110 @ 5,222 pg

Sydney - 4 games, 19,165 @ 4,791

Cairns - 4 games, 18,579 @ 4,645 pg

Perth - 4 games, 16,500 @ 4,425

New Zealand - 4 games, 17,664 @ 4,116 pg (2 games at the 12,000 seat Vector Arena)

Townsville - 3 games, 11,086 @ 3,695

Wollongong - 5 games, 16,493 @ 3,299

Melbourne - 6 games, 19,323 @ 3,221 pg

Gold Coast - 4 games, 12,089 @ 3,022 pg (1 game at the Brisbane Convention Centre)

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Anonymous
Years ago

Holden I think the talk about location is rubbish. Th SNHC is no further out of Melbourne's CBD then the Arena is out of Adelaide.

There are two reasons they don't sell out.

1) cost 2) its the Melbourne Tigers

Most victorian basketballers hate Melbourne and hate Seamus and the Tigers NBL side even more. Why would they go to watch NBL when they don't like the home team AND tickets are three times that of an AFL game?

Location isn't the problem

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HoldenV8
Years ago

Not living in Melbourne I can only go on what I've been told and what I've read. And in actual fact the State Netball Centre is 2km closer to the Melbourne CBD than the Adelaide Arena is to our CBD so your point there is well founded.

I can also see your point about support for the Tigers. Just because they are Melbourne's only current NBL team it doesn't mean they are fully supported. Old Giants, Magic, Titans and Dragons fans wouldn't hold any love for the Tigers would they. However, that said they would still have support and not everyone would hate them, though it might seem that way sometimes.

Ticket prices for Tigers games aren't much different to those here for the 36ers and we still manage to get over 5,000 per game despite the team losing so IMO that's no excuse.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Dont pay too much attention to Perth's listed crowds. The place is pretty much full every week, with a few members not turning up and standing room not selling out on the quieter nights.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Not sure why the Wildcats or Challenge Stadium can't provide an actual crowd figure, rather than an approximate number such as 4000, 4200, 4300 etc... They have electronic scanners at the doors, so surely that should provide a counter of some sort.

I go to every game, and it's pretty much always at capacity. I can't see a difference between 4000 and 4400. So I don't know how the Cats come up with these numbers, they may as well say 4400 as that's what it looks like each game.There's only ever a handful of empty seats scattered around, and there are always people in the standing room areas.

Good to see crowds overall remaining solid after the big Increase last year, and even more so considering the poor TV coverage.

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alexkrad
Years ago

Agree with above comments on Challenge. People wouldn't buy standing room if there were seats available. I would say every game has been closer to 98% seats filled with the empties due to members busy with something else. Add ontop of that a couple hundred standing tickets and what are the actual numbers of tickets sold?

Also, Perth Arena is meant to be finished before next season not 2014, although with all the delays that may be more accurate. I think after the initial curiosity boom for the new Arena the attendance will level out around 6500. Which will be a good number to continue to grow. I would expect Friday games to be an extra 1000 per game due to people working in the city wondering down. Hopefully there is a good marketing strategy to target these people to capture that market.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Big drop off in crowds last weekend for the 36ers with the Patty Mills express getting nearly 1,500 more to the Tigers game than the Blaze game.

TV ratings:

Round 8
Fri - Melbourne Tigers v Sydney Kings, 32,000
Sat - Adelaide 36ers v Gold Coast Blaze, N/A
Sun - Perth Wildcats v Sydney Kings, N/A

http://www.michaeldifabrizio.com/nbl-tv-ratings

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Anonymous
Years ago

And a pick up in crowd in Melbourne! Funny world. What is it with Adelaide fans, after the only home win of the year there is the smallest home crowd of the year?

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Anonymous
Years ago

How many seats does NZ's NSEC hold?

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Anonymous
Years ago

Don't forget that we are only a month out from Christmas, Saturday night games will be affected by that to some degree.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Wasnt our lowest attendence.

Round 2 was 4495.

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Anonymous
Years ago

"How many seats does NZ's NSEC hold?"

I think around 13,000 or 14,000
Breakers get good crwods but unlikely to ever fill that.

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Isaac
Years ago

NSEC is about 4k I think - you might be thinking of something else? It's that venue with the really dark floors.

North Mezzanine Bucket Seats - 576 seats
North Mezzanine GA Bench Seats - 132 carpeted wooden bench seats
South Mezzanine - 1193 seats
Block 12 - 900 bucket seats
Block 4 - 980 wooden bench seats
Mobile Seating Units - 333 plastic bucket seats.

Not sure if they use those mobile units though - floorspace might be taken up by the courtside hospitality tables.

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snake5
Years ago

And there it is....

Cairns ranks third behind Sydney and Adelaide for crowd per game; with a fraction of the population.

The real home of basketball in Australia?

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Anonymous
Years ago

snake probably has more to do with the fact there's nothing else to do in Cairns.

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snake5
Years ago

Anon, you clearly dont live here.

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Anonymous
Years ago

It is not surprising that sponsors are difficult to find based on those figures for a so called National sport.

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Anonymous
Years ago

Snake you've obviously never lived in Melbourbe or Sydney either.